Monday, May 12, 2014

That one time I sat front row at Britney Spears.

I've just returned from a whirlwind weekend in Las Vegas and I
have SO much to catch you all up on. But first, in what might be the greatest
story I've told in my life, I give you the 29 minutes leading up to this photo
being taken:

It was 8:39 PM in Las Vegas. My bff and I had just gotten
all dolled up for the night, due in special part to a genius little business
called Rent The Runway. More on that later.

But this was not just any night. It was the REASON we traveled
a collective 4,418 miles to be in Vegas. It was Britney, bitch.

We purchased our tickets to Britney’s “Piece of Me” show at
the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino much like any other normal person
without an Amex Black card would—via Ticketmaster and selecting the “best-but-also-the-cheapest
available” option.

Our $74 seats, while not the best in the house, were just
enough to satisfy our teenage dreams of seeing Justin Timberlake’s ex
girlfriend shake her booty and lip sync her way through the entire soundtrack
of our high school tenure.

We entered the concert hall and purchased the obligatory $40
souvenir tees and tanks and also got in line for the $15 tequila gingers that
our high school selves could have only dreamed about. Once we found the
entrance to section 208, a nice little granny usher flashlighted us over to our
corner of the auditorium, where we quickly took our seats and made fast friends
with the other gays and gals around us.

As we sat sipping and chatting, waiting for Brit Brit to
take the stage, an unassuming woman in a suit approached us.

“How many in your party?” she asked.

I held up 2 fingers, confused.

“And how many in yours?” she asked the group in front of us.

“Four.”

“Awesome. Come with me. I have better seats for you.”

We assumed this was all a joke, and that Ashton Kutcher was
about to pop out from behind her walkie talkie—but chose to follow her anyway. I
mean, if it all went south we still had our original seats to come back to,
right? Giggling to each other and wondering what was happening, we just kept
following her and getting closer and closer and closer to the stage.

We had walked nearly the entire length of the venue, and
were literally reaching the steps to the stage access when the woman in the
suit—Katie, we learned—waived her arm in the general direction of the usher who
was taking tickets to the VIP section. The TABLE section. The section that
Regular People Like Us do not sit in.

To further illustrate my point, here is a map demonstrating our path to excellence:

“Give me your left arm,” our new usher said and smiled as
she slapped an iridescent pink VIP band around our wrists and handing us our
NEW AND FREE $500 tickets. She has the
BEST and funnest job.

I don’t think any of us actually believed what was
happening, and though my memory of these exact moments is very foggy, I do
remember jumping up and down and squealing at the pitch of a dog whistle “IS
THIS REAL LIFE?” while Katie just laughed and nodded. I think I said, “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”
3,647 times consecutively while trying to remember to breathe.

“We have to fill
these tables every night, and this one was empty. It’s your lucky night,” Katie
told us.

Lucky doesn't even BEGIN to describe what happened. It is
legitimately incomprehensible how, out of an audience of 4,600 total seats, she
would approach us—two undiscerning 30-somethings trying to live out a high
school fantasy in the third-to-last-row of a Britney concert. Why didn't she go
to any of the literally hundreds of raucous bachelorette parties or, better
yet, the probably 50 groups of girls dressed in astonishingly historically accurate Britney
costumes from years gone by? At first glance, they seem like a much more obvious and enthusiastic choice. WHY US?

I honestly have no idea. But I do know that it was one of the
greatest and craziest happenstances of my life to date and I’m not sure I’ll ever
be able to enjoy a concert from the “cheap seats” ever again. I've seen and
tasted how the other half lives and I’m REALLY into it. Tables. Bottle service.
Bodyguards. Oh, and Jessica Alba seated two tables over. YES. It was
amazeballs.

And now, please appreciate this photo overload from The Greatest
Night Of My Life.

I will probably tell this story with unapologetic enthusiasm for the rest of my life. It was just that great. And tomorrow I'll tell the tales from the rest of the trip, which included a spa day,the best sea bass of my life and some male strippers. What I'm saying is that I know how to celebrate Mother's Day.

2 comments:

Hi! I found your blog story online. I'm going to see Britney in August and we have VIP 1 row A seats and I wanted to know if they would be good to really see Britney good. Do we just see the side of hervthe whole time or does she come over to the area where the seats are? I think yours seats were behind ours maybe.